We set out this afternoon on safari, big 5 already completed.

So I thought this would be a good time to spend some time showing my guests the smaller things in Africa like tracks, dung, some trees and their medical uses, etc. This all was a lot of fun. As we had some time to spare, we took a bit longer on our drinks break. While enjoying the sunset with a drink in hand we hear a big growl coming from up north. We all jump back into the car ready to follow this growl and much to our surprise as we enter on one of the main roads we see a male lion in the distance so we race there just to find him skittishly running around.

All of a sudden there was a female Buffalo with a very small baby. We see this male lion charging the baby and to our surprise and, probably the lion’s too, the mother takes a charge back towards the lion, missing him by centimeters. As the mother moves around looking for this male lion we just hear the baby screaming, and we knew that this is it he has got the baby. So we drive around to the other side to see what was going on. When we get there we see a female lion busy running with this knew born buffalo in her mouth.

Once again I could not believe what I was seeing and neither could my guests; this was truly amazing. The best of all is that one of my guests caught all of this action on video .This was truly a show of what a female Buffalo would do to protect her young.

JT – Kapama River Lodge
26/01/2013